RINGING IN A GOODYEAR: Why Privacy Claims Need Traction to Survive

Greetings CIPAWorld!

As we head into New Year’s, when millions of us make those last-minute holiday purchases or finally buy the gifts you promised in those IOUs handed out during the holidays and plan New Year’s celebrations, a California federal court delivered a lesson about digital privacy. In Posadas v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., No. 23-cv-0402-L-DDL, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 228992 (S.D. Cal. Dec. 13, 2024), what started as a case about website tracking evolved into a deeper look at the challenges of proving privacy harm.

Think of it as complaining someone could have read your diary without proving they actually did—or that reading it caused real harm. Not exactly a winning argument, right? That’s essentially what Judge Lorenz found when examining Plaintiff’s claims about Goodyear’s session replay software, which recorded everything from mouse movements to keystrokes. In TransUnion L.L.C. v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 424 (2021),…